Server pool Kerberos authentication scheme

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to the authenticating a client against a pool of servers utilizing a secure authentication protocol, and, more specifically, to the authenticating a client against a pool of servers providing a common service, utilizing the Kerberos secure authentication protocol.

Description

[0001] This U.S. patent application is a Divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. filed 10 / 696,443 filed Oct. 28, 2003.BACKGROUND [0002] 1. Field [0003] The present disclosure relates to the authenticating a client against a pool of servers utilizing a secure authentication protocol, and, more specifically, to the authenticating a client against a pool of servers providing a common service, utilizing the Kerberos secure authentication protocol. [0004] 2. Background Information [0005] Kerberos is a trusted third-party authentication protocol designed for client / server interactions. J. Kohl and B. Neuman, “The Kerberos network authentication service (version 5),” RFC-1510, 1993. Hereafter, a service that is substantially in compliance with the above Kerberos specification, its derivatives, or antecedents is simply referred to as “Kerberos.” This includes imperfect or corrupted implementations. [0006] A Kerberos service allows a person or client to access different machines on a ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

Enables secure authentication of clients against a pool of servers, enhancing security and manageability by allowing load balancing without compromising the entire server pool's security, as each server's secret key can be independently managed.

Problems solved by technology

This technique, however, increases the manageability of the servers, for example, all server passwords must by synchronized, and decreases the security of the server pool, for example, compromising one server eases the compromising of the rest of the server pool.

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